Pete Spence

Surfaces. 

enough flight to cross over shadows
even the plump lazy shadows a flight
recorder could tell a lot but unlikely
in this suggestion of depth

is a scaffold handy to take up 
the perimeter as it hangs about in
a counterbalance of litter as smudges
preening against a backdrop hopping
about avoiding the limelight marking
the airs edges before sunlight fades 
them into the evenness of a weedy pile

keeps up with the spills of demands
appearing as leaks! is history a series 
of drips? a little de l'eau will fix it
eventually smothered in folds of it
becoming the surfaces you can admit to



Stormy Morning.

stormy morning! i winter over coffee
outside the wind has begun to rain
i could use a sand dune to soak up my thoughts
i breathe carefully into the clay of an idea
the honey buzzes as i spread it across some bread
i look up as a shadow passes behind my eyes
everything becomes a comedy of terrors
as error passes into habit habit passes into style
filling the emptier parts of a day
filling the emptier parts of an idea
               filling a lake with sand
              nailing down loose ends
              trying to tempt the elusive
      o morning of instantaneous inaction
      the rain falls like a plague of splattered gnats
                    falls like a semblance of muttered splats
and some sort of bird flies across the face of a window



Osram Velocities.

Ostrich flambes their stems
Skating across savannah into a
Rebus of swarming air and
Aberrant mountains retching into
Mixolydian oasis'

Vivace meadows
Easychairs and acute boulders i
Love you 'though
Ordinarily i'd faint
Clean away like ice than
Imitate water
Tirade all you like
I'm staying on the formica plains
Ebbing quick words from the
Scaffold



Seriously Waiting.

a cloud falls on the heroine tiptoeing 
around other fallen clouds! why rain!
just drop in! the mush grows like yeast

to be alone among fallen clouds is heroic
like treading water laying about dripping
at its edges! rain puzzles water it would
really like to seep away into a nice shadow

but the heroine doesn't like shadows
they can downpour somewhere else or
folded up in a valley gathering some dust
maybe they will become artesian shadows

in the meantime a lost weather report
is handed in tattered around the stitching
messing up the view moving seriously 
across the open field as it disheveled towards
a determined autumn seriously waiting







Pete Spence was born in 1946. He is a poet, visual poet, editor, and filmmaker, and has worked in various jobs to cover the ongoing deficit. 

A collection of visual poetry, 5 X Y, was published last year by Red Fox Press as part of the C'est Mon Dada series.
 
 
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